Genome-wide association studies have reported a strong association of the single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs6817105 (T > C) on chromosome 4q25 with atrial fibrillation (AF), but phenotype alterations conferred by this SNP have not been descri...

Background and AimSorafenib is the standard treatment for patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) with distant metastasis, unresectable HCC, and HCC refractory to transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE) or with macroscopic va...

The incidence of chromosomal abnormalities and cancer risk correlates well with the radiation dose after exposure to moderate- to high-dose ionizing radiation. However, the biological effects and health risks at less than 100 mGy, e.g., from compu...

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) -x protein is a transcriptional regulator required for the HBV life cycle. HBx also induces complications in the host such as hepatocellular carcinoma. We previously showed that HBx mRNA is degraded by the Ski2/RNA exosome ...

Introduction The single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs2106261 in the transcription factor gene ZFHX3 (16q22), a major regulator of inflammation, has been reported linking to atrial fibrillation (AF) by genome-wide association studies. Inflammati...

AimAs second-line therapy, regorafenib has been shown to provide a survival benefit for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) who progress on sorafenib. In this retrospective study, we assessed the clinical outcomes of sorafenib treatment f...

Background: Measurement of flow-mediated vasodilation (FMD) is an established method for assessing endothelial function. Measurement of FMD is useful for showing the relationship between atherosclerosis and endothelial function, mechanisms of endo...

Background and AimFew reports have demonstrated the effectiveness of treatments for intestinal follicular lymphoma (FL) because of the limited number of patients who undergo comprehensive small intestinal examinations. This study compared the effi...

AimTo evaluate the long-term outcome of stereotactic body radiotherapy in patients with small hepatocellular carcinoma who were ineligible for resection or ablation therapies. MethodsA total of 65 patients with 74 hepatocellular carcinomas (median...

Objective: To evaluate the efficacy of both surgical resection and stereotactic body radiotherapy for small hepatocellular carcinoma. Background: Although the number of stereotactic body radiotherapies being performed for hepatocellular carcinoma ...

Background: There is no consensus regarding the management of occult obscure gastrointestinal bleeding (OGIB) patients without a confirmed bleeding source. This study aimed to consider the management of occult OGIB patients based on their long-ter...

The prognosis of patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease-related hepatocellular carcinoma (NAFLD-HCC) is intricately associated with various factors. We aimed to investigate the prognostic algorithm of NAFLD-HCC patients using a data-mining...

Introduction: To compare the efficacy and safety of stereotactic body radiation therapy with or without transcatheter arterial chemoembolization for patients with small hepatocellular carcinoma who were ineligible for resection or ablation therapi...

In Japan, there is a growing population of patients with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection who failed a direct-acting antiviral (DAA)-based regimen. In this Phase 3 study, we evaluated sofosbuvir-velpatasvir plus ribavirin in Japanese pati...

Background: Lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) is not only common symptoms in elderly men and women but also risk of future cardiovascular events. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationships of vascular function and structure with...

Background: Although reactive hyperemia-peripheral arterial tonometry (RH-PAT) is widely used for assessment of endothelial function, RH index (RHI) cannot be measured in some cases when pulse wave amplitude (PWA) is very low. Decrease in PWA is m...

Background According to the Japanese Esophageal Society (JES) guidelines, risk factors for lymph node (LN) metastasis in the muscularis mucosa (MM)/submucosa to a depth of up to 200 mu m (SM1) in cases of esophageal squamous cell carcinomas (ESCCs...

AimAs it is not practical to perform regular screening for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in all patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), there is a need to identify NAFLD patients who are at high risk for HCC. Wisteria floribunda ...

Accumulating evidence suggests that a unique set of receptor tyrosine kinases, known as discoidin domain receptors (DDRs), plays a role in cancer progression by interacting with the surrounding collagen matrix. In this study, we investigated the e...

Current therapeutics for hepatitis B virus (HBV) patients such as nucleoside analogs (NAs) are effective; however, new antiviral drugs against HBV are still desired. Since the interaction between the epsilon (c) sequence of HBV pregenomic RNA and ...

Background: Few studies have investigated the use of endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) for cecal tumors extending into the appendiceal orifice. Herein, we assessed the feasibility and safety of ESD for cecal tumors extending into the appendic...

Cisplatin reacts with DNA and thereby likely generates a characteristic pattern of somatic mutations, called a mutational signature. Despite widespread use of cisplatin in cancer treatment and its role in contributing to secondary malignancies, it...

Background and aims The feature of blood glucose dynamics in patients with chronic liver disease (CLD) is marked blood glucose fluctuations. However, the detail of blood glucose dynamics is not well known. The aim of the present study was to evalu...

Understanding the molecular changes in tumors in response to anti-VEGF chemotherapy is crucial for optimization of the treatment strategy for metastatic colorectal cancer. We prospectively investigated changes in the amount and constitution of cir...

Background and AimThe relationship between the presence of villous edema (VE) in portal hypertensive enteropathy and clinical factors remains unclear. The aim of this study was to reveal the clinical factors related to VE in patients with liver ci...

In Japan, daclatasvir (DCV) and asunaprevir (ASV) therapy was the first IFN-free treatment to be approved, and thousands of patients have since been successfully treated, with an SVR rate of around 90%. The converse, however, is that around 10% of...

Backgrounds: Nitroglycerine-induced vasodilation (NID) is usually assessed as a control test for flow-mediated vasodilation (FMD). However, NID per se is impaired in patients with high cardiovascular risk. The purpose of this study was to investig...

Background and Aims: Although advanced high-volume centers have reported good outcomes of colorectal endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD), a limited number of highly skilled experts in specialized institutions performed these procedures. We unde...

AimThe aim of this study was to determine the risk factors for worsening of gastroesophageal varices (GEVs) and development of portosystemic encephalopathy in patients with hepatitis B virus (HBV)-related cirrhosis during nucleos(t)ide analog (NA)...

AimTo assess the efficacy and safety of telaprevir (TVR) when used in combination with natural human interferon- (IFN-) and ribavirin (RBV) for genotype 1 patients with depression compared to IFN-/RBV therapy in Japan. We also examined the efficac...

This prospective cohort study searched for factors associated with a response to nucleos(t)ide analogue/peg-interferon (NUC/peg-IFN) sequential therapy. A total of 95 patients with chronic hepatitis B being treated with NUCs were enrolled. Immedia...

The risk factors in the progression of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) have not been fully clarified. Porphyromonas gingivalis (P.g) has been considered to be a confounding risk factor for systemic diseases. We aimed to evaluate the effec...

Treatment of HCV genotype (GT) 2-infected Japanese patients with paritaprevir (NS3/4A inhibitor boosted with ritonavir) and ombitasvir (NS5A inhibitor) without ribavirin for 12 weeks in the phase 2 study M12-536, and with ribavirin for 16 weeks in...

The family Flaviviridae consists of four genera, Flavivirus, Pestivirus, Pegivirus, and Hepacivirus, and comprises important pathogens of human and animals. Although the construction of recombinant viruses carrying reporter genes encoding fluoresc...

Background and aims: Baseline brachial artery (BBA) diameter has been reported to be a potential confounding factor of flow-mediated vasodilation (FMD). The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationships between BBA diameter and cardiovas...

Biomarkers predicting the response to the anticancer treatment and prognosis in patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) are required. Recently, high mobility group box 1 (HMGB1) was reported to promote HCC progression and be associat...

AimTo compare the efficacy and safety of edoxaban and warfarin for treatment of portal vein thrombosis (PVT) following danaparoid sodium in patients with liver cirrhosis. MethodsFifty cirrhotic patients with PVT treated initially for 2weeks with d...

Background-Flow-mediated vasodilation (FMD) of the brachial artery has been used for the assessment of endothelial function. Considering the mechanism underlying the vasodilatory response of the brachial artery to reactive hyperemia, hyperemic she...

Background: Although bleeding after endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) for early gastric cancer (EGC) remains problematic, especially in patients taking anticoagulants, there are differing views on the ideal and optimal management for these pa...

Aim. We examined the effectiveness of bile juice cytology for distinguishing between benign and malignant gallbladder lesions of the protruding type with various sampling points, sampling methods, and macroscopic forms in order to discuss the effe...

Background and Aim: Reddish depressed lesions (RDLs) frequently observed in patients following Helicobacter pylori eradication are indistinguishable from gastric cancer. We examined the clinical and histological feature of RDLs and its relevant en...

Background: Serrated adenocarcinoma (SAC) is a distinct colorectal carcinoma variant that accounts for approximately 7.5% of all advanced colorectal carcinomas. While its prognosis is worse than conventional carcinoma, its early-stage clinicopatho...

Background: Blue laser imaging (BLI) and linked color imaging (LCI) are the color enhancement features of the LASEREO endoscopic system, which provide a narrow band light observation function and expansion and reduction of the color information, r...

Background: A common SCN5A polymorphism H558R (c.1673 A > G, rs1805124) improves sodium channel activity in mutated channels and known to be a genetic modifier of Brugada syndrome patients (BrS). We investigated clinical manifestations and underly...

Wisteria floribunda agglutinin positive human Mac-2-binding protein glycosylation isomer (M2BPGi) is a novel serum glycomarker for liver fibrosis. However, it is not known whether or not M2BPGi reflects only liver fibrosis. We measured serum M2BPG...

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infects hepatocytes specifically and causes immune-mediated liver damage. How HBV interacts with the innate immunity at the early phase of infection, either with hepatocytes or other cells in the liver, remains controversia...

We aimed to clarify the long-term outcomes of patients with T1 colorectal carcinoma (CRC) after endoscopic resection (ER) and surgical resection. We examined T1 CRC patients treated during 1992-2008 and who had >= 5 years of follow-up. Patients wh...

Background and Aim: In Western countries, endoscopic removal of all adenomas during colonoscopy is recommended. The present study evaluates the usefulness of magnifying colonoscopy without removal of diminutive (<= 5 mm) colorectal polyps. Methods...

Backgrounds and Aims: The Japan NBI Expert Team (JNET) classification is the first universal narrow-band imaging magnifying endoscopic classification of colorectal tumors. Considering each type in this classification, the diagnostic ability of Typ...

Hypertension is associated with endothelial dysfunction. Blood pressure significantly correlates with endothelial function in antihypertensive drug-naive subjects. The purpose of this study was to determine whether treatment status affects the rel...

Treatment of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection has greatly improved in the last 5 years because of the identification of direct-acting antivirals (DAAs). However, concerns exist regarding the emergence of drug resistance-associated substitutions (...

Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs often cause ulcers in the human small intestine, but few effective agents exist to treat such injury. Ganoderma lucidum Karst, also known as "Reishi" or "Lingzhi", is a mushroom. We previously reported that a ...

Nucleot(s)ide analogues and peginterferon (PEG-IFN) treatment are the only approved therapies for chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. However, complete eradication of the virus, as indicated by persistent loss of hepatitis B surface antigen...

Background: Periodontal disease is associated with endothelial dysfunction, leading to cardiovascular disease. The effect of detailed tooth brushing behavior, not only frequency but also duration of tooth brushing, on endothelial function is uncle...

Aim: The prevalence of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and Crohn's disease (CD) is increasing. The aim of our study was to evaluate the prevalence of NAFLD in patients with CD, as well as to investigate the effect of NAFLD on the disease...

The urea cycle converts ammonia and produces urea. One form of urea cycle abnormality is ornithine transcarbamylase (OTC) deficiency. This hereditary disorder is associated with hyperammonemia. OTC deficiency commonly appears during neonatal and e...

AimFibroScan is a tool for the non-invasive diagnosis of hepatic fibrosis. Previous studies have compared liver stiffness to percutaneous liver biopsy findings, but no study has compared liver stiffness to liver resection specimen findings. The ai...

The presence of an earlobe crease (ELC) may be a simple sign to predict atherosclerosis. We evaluated the relation between ELC and vascular function. We measured flow-mediated vasodilation (FMD) and nitroglycerine-induced vasodilation (NID) and ob...

Background: Osteoporosis and cardiovascular disease are major public health problems. A number of clinical studies have shown a link between osteoporosis and cardiovascular disease, but there is no information on the associations of risk of osteop...

BACKGROUND: Early recurrence (ER) after hepatic resection (HR) is a poor prognostic factor for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). This study aimed to identify the clinicopathological features, outcomes, and risk factors for ER after HR ...

Background & Aims: The prevalence of fatty liver underscores the need for non-invasive characterization of steatosis, such as the ultrasound based controlled attenuation parameter (CAP). Despite good diagnostic accuracy, clinical use of CAP is lim...

miR-122, a liver-specific microRNA, is one of the determinants for liver tropism of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. Although miR-122 is required for efficient propagation of HCV, we have previously shown that HCV replicates at a low rate in miR...

Background Daclatasvir and asunaprevir combination therapy has shown a high virological response for chronic genotype 1 hepatitis C virus (HCV)-infected patients. However, the safety and efficacy of the therapy for older patients are unknown. Meth...

Background Elbasvir (EBR) in combination with grazoprevir (GZR) has demonstrated efficacy in patients with hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections in trials primarily conducted in the USA and Europe. We investigated the safety and efficacy of EBR in co...

Background and Aims: The Japan NBI Expert Team (JNET) was established in 2011 and has proposed a universal narrow-band imaging (NBI) magnifying endoscopic classification of colorectal tumors. The aim of this study was to evaluate the clinical usef...

It is well documented that a variety of viral quasispecies are found in the patients with chronic infection of hepatitis C virus (HCV). However, the significance of quasispecies in the specific infectivity to individual cell types remains unknown....

Background: Endothelial dysfunction and abnormal vascular structure may be involved in the pathogenesis of chronic heart failure (HF). The purpose of this study was to evaluate simultaneously vascular function and vascular structure in patients wi...

Background: Heavy drinking should be a predictor of endothelial dysfunction. However, there is little information on the effects of light to moderate alcohol consumption on endothelial function. The purpose of this study was to estimate the effect...

Two microRNA polymorphisms are associated with hepatitis B virus-related but not hepatitis C virsus-related hepatocellular carcinoma in the Japanese populations
ut not hepatitis C virus-related hepatocellular carcinoma in the Japanese po
pulation.

IFNL4/IL-28B haplotype structure and predictability of their variations for spontaneous and treatment-induced clearance of HCV infection in the Japanese populations
and treatment-induced clearance of HCV infection in the Japanese population